On what was originally forecast to be a very hot and sunny day, Mother
Nature showed who's really the boss by bringing intermittent rain to the
Toronto area. During prerace ceremonies it appeared all competitors had
gambled on the street course continuing to dry as teams elected to start
the race on dry weather tires. However, as the competitors pulled away
from the grid for their warm-up lap, the sky turned dark gray and the
clouds began to drop rain. In the short period it took to complete the
warm-up lap, Aschenbach and his race engineer Brad Buenting decided to
bring Aschenbach in for rain tires from his eighth-place starting spot on
the grid.

"We took a bit of a gamble to come in for rain tires and start from pit
lane at the back of the pack, but it turned out to be a smart move and we
really had nothing to lose," recalled Aschenbach. "With the track getting
wet quickly, starting from the eighth spot might have been an even bigger
gamble going into the first few corners in traffic."

Rain continued to fall in the opening laps of the race. While Aschenbach
was threading his way quickly up through the field on his rain tires,
Fellows and Pilgrim were driving hard at the front to keep pace with the
K-Pax Porsche 911 GT-3s of Randy Pobst and Michael Galati. The Porsches,
running at the lighter weight mandated by the series, pulled away quickly
from the field while Fellows and Pilgrim tried to keep them in sight from
their third and fourth positions on the starting grid.

"Today was a decent day for Team Cadillac, but we really didn't have
anything for those Porsches of Pobst and Galati," offered Fellows after
the race. "We'll have to go back and do our homework to be able to
challenge the Porsches for wins."

By lap 25 of the 31-lap race, Pobst had lapped the entire field up to the
seventh place competitor and was over 40 seconds ahead of the second
place CTS- V of Fellows.

While Fellows eventually worked his way past Galati into second place
after Galati spun, stalled and then restarted on lap 13, Pilgrim's race
pace changed with the weather as he and his race engineer Ken Flory had
gambled on a full dry chassis setup for the race.

"We rolled the dice hoping for dry race conditions and changed from
softer springs for firmer ones before the race," Pilgrim reported.
"Because of that the car was a real handful in the wet conditions, but
would then come right back to me as the line began to dry again nearing
the end of the race."

In the dry laps Pilgrim ran as high as fourth. Then, when the track got
wet in the middle of the race he dropped as far back as sixth before
driving back up to fourth as the track dried in the closing laps of the
race.

"I guess I'll be happy with the fourth place finish for today, but I wish
the full-course yellow hadn't happened and I'd had a chance to try to
catch Galati for third," said Pilgrim.

While Fellows and Pilgrim were driving hard near the front, Aschenbach,
the only driver on rain tires, was turning laps a full second faster than
everyone else and progressing through the field quickly in the rain. By
lap three Aschenbach was already up to sixth place and then on lap eight
he made his way past Tommy Archer's Dodge Viper for fifth place.

"Though I knew if the track began to dry we'd be in trouble, in the wet
my CTS- V was absolutely perfect and it was a lot of fun to drive it up
through the field," recalled Aschenbach. "It was a very physical race - I
think I got hit four times, including getting hit in the back on the last
turn of the last lap by Archer to take fifth place. I'm sure he didn't do
it on purpose because I know he's a better driver than that. I'll just
take the sixth-place finish today, lose some REWARDS weight for the
upcoming Mid-Ohio race, and focus on finishing as high as possible in the
last four races of the season."

Local hero Fellows was philosophical after the race: "Second place is as
good as we could have hoped for today and it will keep Cadillac in the
lead of the manufacturers championship. I'm really looking forward to
running the CTS- V again at Mosport though."

Sunday's SPEED GT race will be televised tape-delayed on Saturday, July
14, at 12 p.m. EDT on the SPEED Channel. The next event for Team Cadillac
is on the challenging Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio on
Sunday, July 22 at 4:15pm.